EXHIBITION IN TOKYO: INSPIRATIONAL JAPAN

Louis Vuitton has long enjoyed a unique and steadfast relationship with Japan, founded on the principles of tradition and modernity.

In the land of the rising sun, tradition is expressed in the conservation of a cultural system, which allows the preservation of the past and the collective memory of a nation.

From a Western perspective, Japan is also the land that creates modernity.
Similarly, Louis Vuitton has skilfully cultivated the aristocratic foundations of its history while venturing onto the cutting edge of modernity and futurism.

Within this ambiguity, the House found commonalties and reciprocal recognition with Japan: be it the inimitable, innovative designs entrusted to Takashi Murakami or Yayoi Kusama, or Rei Kawakubo for Comme Des Garçons, be it a makeup trunk for a kabuki actor or an 1883 cabin trunk for a Japanese dignitary, the objects born of this encounter effortlessly stake their claim in the present.

Gaston-Louis Vuitton collected tsuba, the decorated guards commonly found at the base of the grip of bladed Japanese weapons; his father, Georges, was fascinated by Japanese motifs, like those found on mon, the culture’s family crests that perceptibly influenced the famed Monogram, further evidence of the admiration between Louis Vuitton and Japan.